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(NEW YORK) — The contentious debate surrounding New York City’s struggle to address homelessness and mental illness has clouded the memory of who Jordan Neely was.

But to some who cared for him, Neely is remembered for breaking out into dance and singing along with the hits on the radio as a joyous child.

He’s remembered as a teen who struggled to cope with the loss of his best friend — his mother — who was violently murdered.

He’s remembered for entertaining commuters, tourists, and locals alike with moonwalks and side glides that rivaled Michael Jackson on the NYC subways.

Neely’s family had imagined a great future ahead for him: “I said, ‘Jordan, one day you might be famous,” Neely’s great aunt Mildred Mahazu told ABC News. “And he said, ‘Really, Aunt Mildred?'”

But by the age of 30, Neely was homeless and appeared to be experiencing a mental illness crisis when he was killed after a subway passenger named Daniel Penny held him in a six-minute-long chokehold, officials said.

Penny, a former Marine, was charged with second-degree manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death. He pleaded not guilty, arguing that Neely had been threatening to passengers on the train. Other witnesses reportedly told police that Neely had been yelling and harassing passengers. Penny’s trial begins on Oct. 21 with jury selection.

Neely’s death sparked citywide protests, demanding answers about city resources after reports showed dozens of interactions between Neely and both police and homeless services in the years leading up to his death.

Two of Neely’s loved ones reflected on the life and death in interviews with ABC News ahead of Penny’s trial.

Neely’s life

Neely’s childhood was rocky, according to Mahazu. He and his mother, Christie Neely, were housing insecure — sometimes living in homeless shelters — and his mother’s tumultuous relationship with her boyfriend filled some days with arguments. But amid the instability, Neely’s relationship with his mother blossomed.

The two were inseparable. Everywhere Christie went, Neely followed: “You see one, you see the other,” Mahazu said.

Before heading off to school each morning, Neely would knock at his mother’s door, wake her up and tell her goodbye.

On April 3, 2007, then-14-year-old Neely tried to go about his routine and say goodbye to his mother before school, but her boyfriend, Shawn Southerland, had blocked him from entering their bedroom, according to local news outlet NJ.com.

It was later discovered that Christie had been violently murdered at the hands of now-convicted-murderer Southerland and he dumped her body in a suitcase on a Bronx parkway, according to local reports.

Mahazu believes the tragedy changed the trajectory of Neely’s life. He was a teen, heartbroken and unable to grasp the loss.

Mahazu said she would catch Neely sitting with a far-off look in his eye, sometimes rocking side to side. She’d ask him what was wrong and recalled him once saying, “I miss my mama. I want my mama.”

“They loved each other dearly. They were crazy about each other,” Mahazu said. “From there on, he started going down, down, down, because he and his mother were extremely close, very close,” Mahazu said.

In the years after her death, Neely found solace in his love of dancing and made the NYC MTA subway system his stage, busking for money as a Michael Jackson impersonator.

New Yorker Moses Harper first remembers meeting Neely in August 2009, when she followed the sound of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits in the halls of the Times Square subway station.

Harper, a Michael Jackson tribute artist herself, remembers finding Neely mid-performance, surrounded by a crowd of tourists clapping to the rhythm and following Neely’s encouragement to dance alongside him.

Neely spotted and called on Harper, who was watching from the back of the crowd: “Show me something. Come on. Don’t be scared,” Harper recalls that he yelled out to her. Armed with a single glove in her back pocket on her way home from her dance studio, she surprised Neely with Jackson moves of her own.

“When it was all over, I gave him his hat back and he hugged me. He’s like, ‘You got to teach me, you got to show me.’ And I did,” said Harper.

It was the beginning of a friendship that would last years: “We wouldn’t just talk about Michael Jackson and dancing. We talked about other things, you know, and I missed that. I missed that. That was my little brother.”

She remembers when Neely first told her about his mother: “What was the one person in the world that really got him. And I had never seen him that sad.”

During those years, it was hard for Mahazu to keep track of him riding through the subway system. But he’d come and visit her often, and she’d fix up a big country dinner, and they’d sit and talk over their meal.

Homelessness and mental illness in New York
One day, when Harper was riding the D train into the Bronx, she spotted Neely walking through the train cars. She recalled him looking noticeably homeless and asking for food or money.

She said his face lit up when he saw her, but he kept walking past, which Harper speculates was because of embarrassment. Harper said she stopped him, escorted him off the train, hugged him and asked him what was going on.

She bought him Chinese food, and something to drink, gave him cash and one of the shirts she had layered on.

“I said, ‘Listen to me: When you’re ready to get clean, this is where I am. Come and see me. I want you to come see me,'” she said. “It wasn’t what he needed at the time. And it just wasn’t. It just wasn’t enough. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

A community of Michael Jackson fans and tribute artists in NYC continued to search for Neely over the years after he stopped arriving at events and meetups. But local health officials and law enforcement said they knew him well.

According to police sources, Neely had a documented mental health history and had been previously arrested for several incidents, including assault, disorderly conduct and fare evasion.

The New York Times reported that Neely was on a list of the top 50 sheltered or homeless “high need individuals” to be reached by NYC outreach workers at the time of his death. According to New York Magazine, he bounced around shelters that have been criticized for their poor conditions and had also been hospitalized several times.

The Department of Social Services, the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene and the NYPD declined to comment further on Neely’s case and why the efforts to contact or address Neely’s needs did not work.

Those who knew Neely have demanded answers.

“If you had had the background that Jordan nearly had, how would you fare in life? Where would you be? Where would your mental state be if you had the same kind of struggles that he had?” Harper said. “How would you be doing right now? Do you think that you would deserve the same? The same treatment that he received on the last day of his life? “

The Adams administration criticized “the system” Jordan went through: “That was a real textbook case of how if you ignore the problem over and over and over again, it could turn out to be a tragic outcome.”

Adams condemned Neely’s killing in the days following the death: “Jordan Neely did not deserve to die,” Adams said in prepared remarks amid growing calls for Penny’s arrest. He was not immediately arrested following Neely’s death.

“Jordan Neely’s life mattered. He was suffering from severe mental illness, but that was not the cause of his death. His death is a tragedy that never should have happened,” the mayor said, referring to Neely as “a Black man like me.”

In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached the highest levels since the Great Depression, according to city officials.

Neely’s death took place following an announcement from New York City Mayor Eric Adams that individuals who appear “to be mentally ill” and “a danger to themselves” may be taken into custody involuntarily for psychiatric evaluations if they may be of harm, even if they are not considered to be an imminent threat to the public. The city has yet to release data about the outcomes of these programs and their effectiveness.

However, in a recent Department of Homeless Services announcement, city officials say 7,800 New Yorkers have been connected to shelter and 640 of them have been connected to permanent affordable housing since the city began an intensified approach to homelessness.

“They failed Jordan, they fail so many of the vulnerable members of a vulnerable population,” said Harper, calling for systemic reforms to fix the criminal justice and health care systems.

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(NEW YORK) — After waiting six months — and losing $4 billion on paper — former President Donald Trump faces a potential windfall from his social media company.

Half a year after the public company behind Trump’s Truth Social platform went public, the “lockup” agreement that prevented Trump from selling any of his 115 million shares expired on Thursday afternoon.

Beginning to sell his shares could allow Trump to profit handsomely from his stake in the company — which is currently valued at approximately $1.7 billion — but it could crater the stock for the company’s diehard supporters, many of whom invested their money in the company as a sign of their support for the former president.

At the same time, holding onto the investment would be a financial leap of faith for Trump, whose shares comprise a large percentage of his net worth but have lost billions of dollars in value over the last six months.

Asked about the choice last week, Trump vowed not to sell.

“They’re worth billions of dollars, but I don’t want to sell my shares,” Trump said. “I’m not going to sell my shares. I don’t need money.”

Trump’s choice comes amid new financial pressures and a significant reshuffling of his financial portfolio.

While Trump’s net worth has grown to $4.3 billion according to the most recent Forbes estimate, the former president owes over $560 million in civil judgments, which he is actively appealing. The majority of his personal wealth — once built on the namesake properties that shot him to fame — now stems from his shares in his social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which have fallen more than 70% since the company went public.

Analysts, meanwhile, have expressed concern about a further decline if Trump loses the November election.

Shares in Trump Media closed at a new low of $14.70 Thursday ahead of the lockup provision expiring, though the company enjoyed a 25% surge last week after Trump announced his plan to hold his shares.

“When he’s promised to do something, he’s kept his word,” said Jerry Dean McLain, a shareholder who purchased a hundred additional shares after Trump’s pledge. “He’s loyal to his followers — to his people — so I don’t have any reason not to believe him.”

‘Nothing like this’

Trump turned to the idea of creating his own social media company in the months following his ban from Twitter and other social media companies after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Truth Social launched in 2022, billing itself as a beacon for free speech on the internet with larger plans to expand into streaming.

“All of a sudden, I went from being No. 1 to having no voice,” Trump said about the benefit of Truth Social. “I’m not going to let that happen again.”

Despite multiple roadblocks — including a dispute with the company’s cofounders and its special purpose acquisition company paying a fine to settle fraud charges with the Securities and Exchange commission — the social media company went public in March.

Shares in the public company peaked at $66 in April, with analysts comparing the company to so-called “meme stocks” like AMC and GameStop, whose share prices surged based on investor enthusiasm rather than financial metrics.

By the summer, Trump Media’s stock price lingered around $30 before slumping to the teens in September, which some experts still believe is overvaluing the company, which only brought in $836,000 in revenue last quarter — a 30% decline from a year earlier. Based on the company’s cash per share, the stock is overvalued by 1,000%, according to University of Florida finance professor Jay Ritter.

With the company losing millions of dollars, reporting limited revenue, and offering an unproven business model, the stock’s performance has frequently tracked with Trump’s personal wins and losses. When Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York, the stock declined 14% in after-hours trading following the verdict. Shares then surged as much as 30% early trading on the Monday after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“It’s much more of a speculative half-proxy for the former president’s reelection prospects and half kind of a long shot early-stage opportunity to get in on a potential new tech company and social media platform,” said Tyler Richey, an analyst at Sevens Report Research.

While it’s not unusual for a company’s stock price to fluctuate based on its corporate leadership, Trump’s relationship to the value of his company stands alone, according to Mike Stegemoller, a finance professor at Baylor University. Trump is the platform’s most notable user, he attracts new members to the platform, and he is the company’s largest shareholder.

“Publicly traded corporations … are somewhat dependent on personalities, but nothing like this,” said Stegemoller. “You’re getting this asset that generates cash flows, and you’re coupling that with a personality that’s pulling revenue to that asset.”

In regulatory filings, the company has acknowledged the risk of being tied to the former president. If Trump were to sell his shares or begin using another social media platform, the company’s stock value could suffer.

Trump, for his part, has vowed to continue posting on Truth Social.

“I love it. I use it as a method of getting out my word,” Trump said last week regarding the platform.

‘A much more profitable deal’

The lockup agreement that’s kept Trump from selling off his shares in the first six months is an arrangement that’s often used by public companies to prevent company leadership from taking actions that could affect the stock price, according to Ritter.

Trump’s 115 million shares means he owns more than half of the company, so selling those shares — which Trump would have to disclose within two days in a public filing — could trigger a massive selloff and tank the company’s stock price.

“As soon as folks know he’s getting out in any large amount, I would imagine shares would fall,” said Stegemoller.

According to Stegemoller, Trump’s announcement last week that he would not sell his shares is reasonable — not only because Trump likely wants the company to succeed, but also because selling his shares too rapidly could cost him money. Because he holds so many shares, Trump would be unlikely to fully offload them all before the stock price plummeted, forcing him to sell his remaining shares at a lower price.

Alternatively, Trump could slowly sell some of his shares, arrange a deal with a buyer, or use the shares as collateral for loans. Selling some of his shares would allow Trump to still own a controlling interest in the company while diversifying his portfolio, according to Stegemoller.

“Selling slowly over time in order to pull money out of his investment is a much more reasonable deal for him, and a much more profitable deal for him, too,” Stegemoller said.

Although Trump has publicly declared that he plans to hold his shares, executives in the company could consider selling their holdings, which could also impact the stock price.

“They might want to get out as quickly as possible, and rather than sell their shares gradually, it might be a rush for the exit,” said Ritter.

‘I’m not leaving’

Trump has suggested that the company’s sluggish stock performance is partially due to speculation about him stepping away from the company — a notion he tried to dispel last week.

“People think that I’m leaving. That’s why they’re down,” Trump said regarding shares in the company. “It’s different if I leave, but I’m not leaving. I love it.”

And some analysts believe the expiration of the lockup provision could prove to be a turning point for the company.

According to Richey, a recent spike in trading volume and other metrics suggest that the stock price might be reaching a bottom, while Trump’s decision to hold his shares could reassure investors.

Speculation about Trump’s chances of winning in the November election could also help the stock price.

“There’s still money in the markets supporting a Donald Trump win if you’re using the stock price as a proxy for the election outcome,” Richey said.

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(OKLAHOMA CITY) — At least one person has been killed and 12 others have been injured in a shooting that took place at a party at an event center in Oklahoma City, police have confirmed.

Oklahoma City Police said that it appears there was a disturbance which led to “multiple shots being fired both inside and outside the event center.”

The names and ages of those involved in the incident have not yet been released but authorities have confirmed that at least one person was killed in the altercation and 12 others have been injured.

The suspects are currently unknown at this time but several people have been detained, according to law enforcement.

“We are in the process of interviewing witnesses,” authorities told ABC News. “We will provide more details when we get them.”

The investigation is currently active and ongoing.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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